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A long the banks of the New Shinano River Canal in the town of Bunsui grow some of the tallest cherry trees in Niigata Prefecture. On the second or third Sunday in April when the trees are at the height of their magnificent bloom, the town celebrates the arrival of spring with Oiran Dochu, the parade of courtesans. The oiran were courtesans of the Edo period (1603-1867), and the origins of the event can be traced back to the mid-1930s when local geisha disguised themselves as oiran to view cherry blossoms after dark in a playful masquerade. Now young women wearing the traditional kimono and makeup of the oiran compete in a contest to decide three winners who will parade for an hour under the white-blossomed canopy.
I live in the neighboring town of Yoshida, where I teach English in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program at a local junior high school. Every year I attend this celebration with a party of friends, making merry, drinking sake, even singing with the aid of battery-operated karaoke machines. But the arrival of the oiran paraders brings everyone to serious attention. The No. 1 oiran's countenance is pure and expressionless. Her skin is powdered to bone white, sharply contrasting with her black eyebrows, red lips, and naturally dark eyes. Bold red tears are painted on the lower lids, curving upward toward her temples. She walks deliberately, each step a small sweeping semicircular arc to accommodate the high geta on her feet. Her graceful solemnity is also a balancing act because she wears an eight-kilogram wig and a regal 22-kilogram kimono in vivid spring blues and pinks. Each oiran has some 70 attendants, including a parasol bearer who, though he is no older than my rambunctious junior high school students, goes about his duties seemingly oblivious to the attention and excitement of the spectators.
"Without this event, spring would not feel like spring," says Honda Kohei, a resident of Bunsui and longtime member of my adult English conversation class in Yoshida. "When nature and people celebrate together we feel the timelessness of the seasons."
Honda is a truck driver. One night a couple of weeks after the Oiran Dochu, I heard the rumble of his 10-ton Toyota pulling up...